Choices are more than change

I am continuing on with the Maladaptive schema and the things that my counselor taught me to counter act each one. There isn’t one of them that I can’t change when I understand that I have choices. I need to learn more and work hard but not impossible.http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2015/05/maladaptive-schemas.html10. ENTITLEMENT / GRANDIOSITY – The belief that one is superior to other people; entitled to special rights and privileges; or not bound by the rules of reciprocity that guide normal social interaction.This is the one that I needed to take a reality check. Very disappointed when my reality check bounced. I am teaching myself to look again at my plans and opinions. I am not entitled to good health, I am not entitled to my mother’s love, I am not entitled to many things that I thought I could have. My counselor spent more than one session bringing my head out of the clouds of “what I wish I could be” and planted them solidly in this is your reality. Embrace it. Change it. But you are not entitled to some of the things I thought I was. I work hard at making my goals more realistic without loosing my dreams of a better tomorrow. I think this was the hardest and the easiest to master. Hardest because I didn’t want to let go of the illusion that my mother should love me in a healthy way. The easiest was once I accepted I was able to shuffle priorities very quickly. If I start to feel too grand I remember the Dr. Banks tape. He shared the story of a man that stood in the mental health ward very grand with one hand inside his robe. He asked the man who he was. “I, sir, am Napoleon.”
“Who told you were Napoleon?”
“God told me.”
From another bunk he heard, “I did not.”
There is always someone that thinks they are grander than I am. I also believe this is where humility steps in and helps out us mere mortals. I like the quote my daughter in law has at her house. Humility is not about thinking less of yourself, it is about thinking of yourself less. 11. INSUFFICIENT SELF-CONTROL / SELF-DISCIPLINE – Pervasive difficulty or refusal to exercise sufficient self-control and frustration tolerance to achieve one’s personal goals, or to restrain the excessive expression of one’s emotions and impulses. In its milder form, patient presents with an exaggerated emphasis on discomfort-avoidance: avoiding pain, conflict, confrontation, responsibility, or overexertion—at the expense of personal fulfillment, commitment, or integrity.

I felt I had no control of my actions. I was steeped in ‘have-to’, should, ‘they-make-me.’ I had to first accept that I did have control of my life before I could learn the self-discipline in other areas of my life. I believe karate is one of the many things that are teaching my self-discipline. I grew up with so much discipline I didn’t know how to do it for myself. I believe this is one of the important rolls of a parent is to move from giving orders to giving suggestions to cheering on my children. I felt they needed to learn these steps a bit at a time. I am also learning from Team Froglogic to embrace the suck.http://www.teamfroglogic.com/navy-seal-blog/embrace-fear-blog-entry-5-mission-4-test-yourself/
As I accepted responsibility of my life I learned that the only was to stop feeling out of control is to take control of things myself. I also learned that avoidance at all cost would cost me everything. Embracing integrity goes a long way to sorting out the self-control and the self-discipline.

12. SUBJUGATION – Excessive surrendering of control to others because one feels coerced – – usually to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment.
This is what made number 11 so difficult. I didn’t think I had control in my life. I surrendered all my control to someone else. Taking back my power and learning my rights and responsibilities as a human being went a long ways toward changing this. When I took back my power, I stopped feeling a need to let others control me. The left off one of the steps of subjugation to avoid physical beatings, sometimes the implied threat of a beating. Once I understood my power, I started looking at the people in my life that were putting me in my place and decided I was going to stay put. It was a process. My counselor guided me as I stumbled through my taking back my power and decisions I was making. It didn’t happen all at once and every so often I have to check in with myself that I am not giving up too much power again. I learned that even with my employment I have a certain amount of control and that I function better if I feel I have choices. In case I haven’t mentioned before, I love choices.